Putin offers ring to make peace with Patriots football owner
普廷提供戒指與愛國者足球隊老闆和解

Tue, Aug 27, 2013 - Page 11

Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling a truce in the “War of the Ring.”

Accused of pocketing a diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft showed him back in 2005, Putin came up with a peace offering, albeit barbed.

“You know, I remember neither Mr Kraft nor a ring,” Putin said when asked about the incident during an economic forum in St Petersburg — the city where the ring saga started.

“I remember some souvenirs were handed out. But if it is so precious to Kraft and the team, I have a proposal,” Putin said, adding that he would ask a Russian jeweler to make “something really good, noticeable — so that it is clear that it is an expensive thing, with good metal and a stone.”

The Russian ring could “be handed down from generation to generation of the team that Mr Kraft represents,” he said, and would be “the smartest, most partner-like solution to this difficult international issue.”